


Catch Up Duty

by helsinkibaby



Category: NCIS
Genre: Community: comment_fic, Everybody knows, F/M, Het, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 15:25:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15342777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: The big surprise is that no-one is surprised.





	Catch Up Duty

**Author's Note:**

> Theme: blue  
> Prompt: any, any, not really out of the blue

Ellie and Nick keep the change in their relationship a secret for as long as they can, but when they finally decide to tell people, they’re surprised to find out that no-one is surprised. 

“I thought they’d make a good match the second Eleanor saved Nick’s life during the Victor Medina case,” Ducky tells anyone who will listen. “Good partners on the job make good partners in life, I always find.” 

“For me, it was incessant flirting over dead bodies,” Jimmy says with a totally straight face. “That can only come from a place of love.” 

“I knew it when she took my statement when I came out of the coma,” Lucia says, her lips twitching as Nick’s jaw drops. “Don’t look at me like that, little brother,” she continues. “I could tell she was smart and determined and wouldn’t give you an inch... that’s just the kind of woman you need.” 

Abby’s loud squeal over FaceTime threatens to make Ellie drop her phone. “I totally called it that time you were undercover, remember, and he ditched you at the hospital? You emptied a whole clip of ammunition in my lab because you were so pissed off.” Even over the pixelated connection, her eyes sparkle. “That much anger can only mean passion is bubbling under the surface.” 

“I knew that Thanksgiving,” George tells them and Ellie stares at her brother, shocked. 

“I was dating Qasim that Thanksgiving.” 

George inclines his head, managing to convey fresh sympathies over Qasim’s fate and complete dismissal of her objection. It’s quite the feat. “You were dating Qasim, but Nick was totally your type. And don’t talk to me about Jake.” He spits the name of her ex-husband. “You go for the nice guys who act like bad guys, that was your mistake with him, you got it backwards.” 

“Nick’s been into you since he first started working with you,” Alex tells her flatly over one of their weekly catch up lunches. “The whole low-key flirting and jealousy thing was nauseating, frankly.” 

“Sniping at each other at my first crime scene after I came back from Panama.” They all pretend not to notice how Tim shudders when he says that, for all that he’s trying to be casual. “I’ve seen that kind of verbal foreplay before.” His eyes grow sad and far away and Ellie takes Nick’s hand, shakes her head at his questioning look before she changes the subject. 

But it’s Gibbs who takes the cake. They take him to the diner to tell him, leave it to the end of their meal. They’re expecting an explosion, they get a shrug as he stands up. “Knew it from ‘we’re on the same side,’” he tells them as he walks away and it takes Ellie a second to place the words. 

“That was literally our first meeting,” she says, watches as the realisation, the memory, plays across Nick’s face as well. 

“He’s saying he knew from our first meeting?” Nick’s voice is an octave higher than usual, showing his scepticism but Ellie just shrugs. 

“It’s Gibbs,” she says, as if that explains everything and maybe, just maybe, it’s enough. 

“But.. but...” Nick splutters and Ellie stops him with a look. 

“We can talk about Gibbs,” she says, sliding a little closer to him across the vinyl seat. “But since everyone seems to have figured us out before we did... I think we have some catching up to do.” 

Her grin is positively wicked as her hand slides up his thigh. 

Nick gets with the program pretty quickly after that.


End file.
